Chapter XXI: Growing Deeper

For a second or two Westy was thoroughly alarmed, but soon felt reassured when his eyes fell upon the crystal-like water gurgling against the pearly stones.

“The little rascal, he’s gone straight up the brook to Lola’s to get away from me!”

With that knowledge under way he hurried back to the cabin to make himself look more presentable in the presence of ladies.

He was tying a little string tie, trying to knot it at just the right angle. In a cracked mirror that was just half its original size, he valiantly tried to accomplish the feat. He could see his face all right without standing on his toes and that notwithstanding his height. Of course, the cracks in the mirror gave him a most grotesque appearance. He really shivered as he viewed his own countenance. It looked so painfully distorted and his nose was cracked in three places. When he stood on his toes to see if he had tied the knot, all that appeared to his struggling vision was his Adam’s apple moving furiously with suppressed rage. So he gave it up and started out without caring another hang about appearances.

It was around ten o’clock when he struck off the main trail for Lola’s and it occurred to him that perhaps Rip wouldn’t like it, running him down in such a fashion. Rip was funny that way; Westy didn’t know exactly how to take him, but he knew this much--that a good deal of the younger boy’s skepticism was put on. But still he liked him in spite of that. He wanted the whole world to think he was something he wasn’t.

“That’s nothing,” Westy said aloud, “there are plenty like that lying around loose in the world, and he’s just a boy yet. He’ll get over it--I hope. I bet he would go up there some time just to show me he was real brave and all the time he would be afraid himself. Lots of heroes have been made of that kind of stuff, too.

“I’ll whistle again when I get near the place so he won’t think I’m sneaking up on him. Maybe he’ll have told Lola he’s sore and don’t want to see me and beat it down the brook, when he hears me. I won’t let on anything about it if she asks me. I got a good excuse for going there, anyway; Mr. Wilde told me to.”

He came to a queer-shaped pine tree that was now familiar in marking the last few hundred feet before coming to the Redmond clearing. He started to whistle and slowed down his gait.

Presently Lola came to the opening and waved to him gayly. He returned the greeting and smiled inwardly to think that Rip was doing the very thing that he expected he would do, and there she was smiling just as though she knew nothing about it. She wanted to be loyal to both of them, Westy mused, and that was the right thing to do.

“’Lo, Westy,” she said, beaming. “It’s nice to see you this early. Now what could have brought you, I wonder?”

Just like a woman, Westy thought. Giving herself dead away.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Westy answered indifferently. “Mr. Wilde told me to run over and keep you folks company.”

“Isn’t that just like him! Do you know, Westy, my grandmother and I are going to miss you all very much when you leave here.” She looked away wistfully: “I’d like to see what other cities look like!”

“Have you ever been away from here, Lola?” Westy asked.

“Only to Santa Fe three times; just on short visits. Father took me before he went to France, but I have never been any further. I’ve seen pictures of cities much bigger than Santa Fe; still I was terribly thrilled when I went there!”

Westy was touched and longed to ask her why they didn’t leave their isolated home, but he just couldn’t trespass upon her private affairs.

“You must forgive me, though, talking about myself,” she continued, “but grandmother and I feel freer to talk with you all. We have never spoken so to any one before. Most people aren’t interested in the petty troubles of a mountaineer. You can’t blame them, really!”

“Not at all! Why shouldn’t we be interested in other people’s troubles? A scout should be--particularly!”

“Isn’t that fine! Tell me more about them, Westy?”

Westy thought that herein was his chance to be real helpful in their poverty and was thinking how to go about the delicate topic when Mrs. Redmond came out into the garden and smilingly nodded to him.

“Where’s Rip this morning?” she asked.

Westy looked at Lola and her face was a blank as far as he could see. Then she turned to him in an apologetic manner.

“I never asked, did I? I really meant to ask you where he was when you came along. He isn’t ill, is he?”

Her expression was so manifestly one of concern that Westy lost his poise for a moment as the memory of Rip’s threat flitted through his mind.

“Why, hasn’t he been here at _all_ this morning?” He couldn’t seem to make himself believe it.

“No,” Lola said. “We haven’t seen him at all. Where do you think he is?”

“I wish I was sure--but then he wouldn’t if he did go up there----”

“You mean all his talk of yesterday, don’t you? I wouldn’t worry about that a bit, Westy. He wouldn’t dare go in after all I told him. He’s just a little peeved because you didn’t urge him. Go on up--you’ll find him ready to make up, I guess!”

Westy started on a dog trot and as he disappeared through the trees he called back to her excitedly: “If he did go in anyway, do you think he’d have any chance----”

She couldn’t hear the rest he said for his words were lost in the distance.